Consumer Watchdog today urged consumers to opt out of the new electronic health information exchange, Cal INDEX, that is being set up by Blue Cross and Blue Shield until key questions about patient privacy are answered. The nonpartisan, nonprofit public interest group added that the best way to protect privacy when sharing patient information is…
Ca: RCMP broke privacy laws by sharing medical histories of officers: report
Brian Hutchinson reports: The RCMP committed a “serious privacy breach” and broke federal privacy laws when it shared sensitive medical information about five of its officers while throwing accusations at their psychologist, according to a privacy commissioner’s report written last month and obtained by the National Post. The five Mounties went to the Office of the…
AU: Steven Willmott’s Woolworths lawsuit over identity theft
In light of all the data breaches, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more protests/appeals like this one in Australia. Kim Stephens reports: When Steven Willmott applied for a job as a console operator at a Woolworths service station in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland town of Beerwah in December, 2013, he objected to the online application…
VT: DCF email inadvertently shares foster parents’ personal info
Email errors are still not a thing of the past. Shelby Cashman reports: A registered Department for Children and Families foster parent who wants to remain anonymous says she feels violated. Her personal information, including Social Security number, was inadvertently emailed to 34 other foster parents by the Newport family services division of DCF. She is not…
Banks: Park-n-Fly Online Card Breach
Brian Krebs reports: Multiple financial institutions say they are seeing a pattern of fraud that indicates an online credit card breach has hit Park-n-Fly, an Atlanta-based offsite airport parking service that allows customers to reserve spots in advance of travel via an Internet-based reservation system. The security incident, if confirmed, would be the latest in a string…
Fairfax County Notice: Unauthorized Vendor Release of Personal and Medical Information
Fairfax County, Virginia issued the following release yesterday about a breach that does not appear on HHS’s public breach tool and that was not previously known to this site. They say a total of 595 individuals were affected, but the number whose PHI were involved was not specified: Since a 2012 unauthorized data release by…